


Bashow

by sturmundwank



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturmundwank/pseuds/sturmundwank
Summary: When the love that dare not speak its name came for Brad, he stared it down and ordered an iced latte.





	Bashow

**Author's Note:**

> Blanket warning for canon-typical dickishness.

Brad knew from the start, of course—that first meeting in the Camp Pendleton Starbucks, shortly before Nate Fick took over the platoon, which Fick, having already heard of the Iceman and the influence he exerted over his lessers, had asked Mike Wynn to arrange.

From the moment Brad stepped into the café, paused to let the air cool the sweat on his brow, and, in response to some subliminal signal, looked across the room and straight into Fick’s eyes, he knew.

At first, he took Fick for a college boy or even a high-school senior: some first sergeant’s serious nephew catching the light just so, with the kind of face that had no business coming into sight while Brad was in his cammies. But of course his face was all for Brad—of course.

Brad had looked up first, was the thing. He’d felt the tug before he even saw the man.

He started moving toward Fick, then, and didn't even know if he was walking like a normal human being or panting and bumping into chairs, though he must have looked composed enough. He felt helpless, like he was being carried on the tidal wave rushing in his ears. He certainly didn’t remember, in that moment, anything he’d ever said he would or wouldn’t do if the right time came.

But when he drew near, Fick’s eyes, which had tracked him with an intensity he could feel on his skin, slid from his face and caught on his name tape, and the whole thing Brad thought they had almost worked themselves into in four seconds flat fell apart. Just like that.

There was a pause that stretched taut after that, a _Sergeant Colbert? I’m Nate Fick_ , and a handshake that made Brad’s palm tingle, which was almost too emasculating to bear. Fick bought him an iced coffee and asked him a series of questions about his career and the platoon, aggressively broadcasting progressive ideas about officer leadership and a precisely calculated degree of approachability the entire time, and neither of them said a word about the whole—matching up, the pull, that first moment between them.

Other people had other names for it, Brad knew. He could recall perfectly the way his mother’s mouth shaped the word _soulmate_ , so wistful and fucking middle class. _Bashert_ , that one was even worse. And the Corps could call it any number of things, depending on the circumstances: fraternization, other than honorable, dishonorable, administrative separation, homosexual—whatever. The Corps could do whatever it wanted.

But Fick’s bottle-green eyes had gone bright and abstracted, thankfully, so there could be nothing for the Corps to do.

Soulmate propaganda was just hormone therapy for suburban housewives, anyway, as he could now remember telling Poke and Pappy. The whole thing wasn’t essential, or binding, or even all that great to have, if you let yourself be roped into it.

So he knew, yes, but it changed nothing, or at least nothing that mattered. They both had other things to do. Other lives to lead.

It changed nothing at first.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost embarrassed by how self-indulgent and melodramatic this thing is, but it's nothing compared to the soap opera I'd produce if I had the attention span to write out the extended story.
> 
> (I spent entirely too much time figuring out how soulmate stuff should intersect with DADT and the officer-enlisted divide in this verse and how likely Brad would be to shake Nate's hand as opposed to saluting him as it is.)


End file.
